Babel
Grade: A-
Skip the pretentious “Syriana,” the over-hyped “Children of Men,” and the excruciating “Crash.”
If you’re seeking a subtle, intelligent, emotional, and gripping film about racism, immigration, weaponry, international politics and how these elements collide to both devastate and ennoble our planet, this is the one to see.
A flawless ensemble of superstars and unknowns alike tell four disparate stories spread across the globe in Mexico, Morocco, San Diego and Tokyo. Director Alejandro González Iñárritu brilliantly interweaves time, place and meaning, leaving us only slightly off-balance as the pieces slowly, smartly and inexorably come together. A poor Moroccan family acquires a rifle to ward off predators preying on their sheep, and a yarn of unintentional gun violence, traumatized families, displaced grief, innocent babes and illegal caregivers, the consequence of carelessness, the humanity of the individual and the inhumanity of our borders slowly and thrillingly unfolds.
Brad Pitt turns in a career-defining performance as a husband and father trying to keep it all together amidst personal grief and jarring happenstance. A man truly in the wrong place at the wrong time, Pitt disappears into himself – gray, ashen, weathered both by the Moroccan sun and the tragic circumstances of his life. This boy can act.
Adriana Barraza is glorious as an illegal nanny who temps the fates simply by daring to have her own life while caring for children unceremoniously dumped into her charge by emotionally and physically absent parents. Rinko Kikuchi pains as an over-sexualized teenager unable to process her own overwhelming grief, Mustapha Rachidi humanizes a family and community our xenophobic nation consistently seeks to dehumanize amidst our fantasy of moral supremacy, and Mohamed Akhzam quietly moves as a healing hand amidst the politics of an injured American on foreign soil.
A single, indiscriminate gunshot will have ramifications for all their lives, and Iñárritu passionately yet understatedly makes the personal political. In a world where no one knows how to communicate with one another, where culture and language are unrelenting obstacles to our interconnectedness, the individual seems far less important than media headlines and governmental spin-doctoring. The film delicately provides a road map for how far astray we have gone and where hope remains for our redemption, without proselytizing ad nauseum or dumbing down the storytelling. If the camera lingers too lovingly on specific moments of ethnic diversity, and if one of the storylines never quite folds into the whole as organically as one would wish, the film remains a finely balanced work of condemnation and idealism nevertheless.
In the book of Genesis, we learn that the Tower of Babel was built by all of humanity to reach the heavens, and that God destroyed the tower and changed the one language of humankind into many different languages to ensure such an attempt could never happen again.
Skip the pretentious “Syriana,” the over-hyped “Children of Men,” and the excruciating “Crash.”
If you’re seeking a subtle, intelligent, emotional, and gripping film about racism, immigration, weaponry, international politics and how these elements collide to both devastate and ennoble our planet, this is the one to see.
A flawless ensemble of superstars and unknowns alike tell four disparate stories spread across the globe in Mexico, Morocco, San Diego and Tokyo. Director Alejandro González Iñárritu brilliantly interweaves time, place and meaning, leaving us only slightly off-balance as the pieces slowly, smartly and inexorably come together. A poor Moroccan family acquires a rifle to ward off predators preying on their sheep, and a yarn of unintentional gun violence, traumatized families, displaced grief, innocent babes and illegal caregivers, the consequence of carelessness, the humanity of the individual and the inhumanity of our borders slowly and thrillingly unfolds.
Brad Pitt turns in a career-defining performance as a husband and father trying to keep it all together amidst personal grief and jarring happenstance. A man truly in the wrong place at the wrong time, Pitt disappears into himself – gray, ashen, weathered both by the Moroccan sun and the tragic circumstances of his life. This boy can act.
Adriana Barraza is glorious as an illegal nanny who temps the fates simply by daring to have her own life while caring for children unceremoniously dumped into her charge by emotionally and physically absent parents. Rinko Kikuchi pains as an over-sexualized teenager unable to process her own overwhelming grief, Mustapha Rachidi humanizes a family and community our xenophobic nation consistently seeks to dehumanize amidst our fantasy of moral supremacy, and Mohamed Akhzam quietly moves as a healing hand amidst the politics of an injured American on foreign soil.
A single, indiscriminate gunshot will have ramifications for all their lives, and Iñárritu passionately yet understatedly makes the personal political. In a world where no one knows how to communicate with one another, where culture and language are unrelenting obstacles to our interconnectedness, the individual seems far less important than media headlines and governmental spin-doctoring. The film delicately provides a road map for how far astray we have gone and where hope remains for our redemption, without proselytizing ad nauseum or dumbing down the storytelling. If the camera lingers too lovingly on specific moments of ethnic diversity, and if one of the storylines never quite folds into the whole as organically as one would wish, the film remains a finely balanced work of condemnation and idealism nevertheless.
In the book of Genesis, we learn that the Tower of Babel was built by all of humanity to reach the heavens, and that God destroyed the tower and changed the one language of humankind into many different languages to ensure such an attempt could never happen again.
It appears even God is guilty of profound and sadly irrevocable errors in judgment.
.
More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0449467/
posted by SternReviews @ 6:59 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
i do love you and appreciate your wise and articulate movie going self but i could not disagree with you more on this movie.
a good friend said it was like watching a soap opera and how bad decisions are made and you cringe on each one knowing the oncoming doom. i agree with that. i didn't find it believable and i would not have made any of the decisions these people did. it was painful to watch because i was constantly aware of huge movie star brad pitt and all his relationship issues, how pro-american it was making all other places seem so dangerous, and how predictable each of their stupid moves were going to turn out. thank you for listening. keep your reviews coming, i love disagreeing with you.
Post a Comment
<< Home